


i'll always come back for you, to you

by ryanreynolds



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Airplane Crashes, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, No Proofreading: We Die Like Men, Not Really Character Death, Post-Canon, Seriously Don't Trust Nate, Unreliable Narrator, but mostly angst sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 06:10:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13828152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryanreynolds/pseuds/ryanreynolds
Summary: He thinks something could be said for the fact that the day he falls apart is not the day he gets into the accident, but the day Brad dies overseas.





	i'll always come back for you, to you

He thinks something could be said for the fact that the day he falls apart is not the day he gets into the accident, but the day Brad dies overseas.

 

It’s a Saturday afternoon, and in the morning, Nate’s happiness will be made. In the morning, everyone and all of his worries will dissipate; in the morning, he’ll be able to relax for the first time in a year and a half.

All this he knows from the mail that got in from Brad half an hour ago: _Can’t talk, but I’m en route to the airport. We’ll be at the airport in the morning, I’ve attached the details. See you:)_

In the morning, that’s what he tells himself. In the morning, he’ll be reunited with Brad. And maybe, he thinks with a wistful smile, maybe tomorrow afternoon he’ll be able to call Brad his fiancé. He’s had the ring since two weeks after Brad was deployed again, and even though the promise hasn’t been made, its presence in their apartment has been a reassurance that Brad will come home.

After all, Nate has a question for him. How could he not come home, when Nate’s got a fucking important question for him?

It’s a little naive, and Nate has learned too many times too hard that naivety is dangerous, can get you killed – or, worse, can get someone from your platoon killed. Be realistic, don’t idealistic. He learned that at the OCS, he learned that in Iraq, but when it comes to Brad, he wants to be selfish. Wants it to be alright that he’s selfish. Just this one time; he’ll go back to sacrifice everything he has to for other’s safety and whatnot, if only he can have this one thing for himself. Brad, always Brad.

If there’s a God, Nate would probably pray to him, just this once.

But maybe it’s not about being selfish anymore; they’ve been together for so long now. 2005 through to 2015. 10 years. It’s not about luck anymore, he doesn’t think – even though he’ll never ever be enough to truly earn Brad – it’s about true, everlasting love. He himself knows, that is, that he will never love anyone but Brad for the rest of his life.

There’s only ever been one whom he didn’t just fall in love with, but also loved with his whole heart. Sure, he fell in love at grad school. But he never really, truly loved them. Only one who’s ever crawled into his heart, and actually fucking stayed there, is Brad. And that, he thinks with a grin, is how he’d like to keep it.

He’ll ask tomorrow. Hell, he’ll maybe even ask on the way home. Somehow, the ring in the cabinet and Brad are so inseparable now, that Nate won’t be able to look at Brad again, and not see the ring on his finger. He’s imagined it too often, far too often, for him to not find out if the dream could come true at the first opportunity that presents itself.

His phone vibrating in his pocket drags him out of his thoughts, back to reality. He blinks a few times, staring dumbly at his leg, until his brain catches up.

“Hey?”

“ _Oh god, Nate, hi_ ”, he can recognize his sister’s voice everywhere. He sits up straighter, brows furrowed at her panicked tone.

“Ruth? Is something wrong?”, he’s two seconds from standing up even though standing up quickly still pains his leg so damnably much, getting his car keys and drive all the way from San Francisco to fucking Boston. Miles upon miles be damned.

“I don’t know, I want to be sure, I have to be sure, Nate. Sit down.” And her voice is both urgent, commanding, pleading, and Nate sits down like the obedient officer he was trained to be. Receive an order, execute said order. That’s how his brain is wired to think. “Can you remember Brad’s flight? Numbers and such?”

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, before shaking his head. “No, no, I’m not sure, I’d have to go find his email. But it’s the London to San Francisco, British Airways, ETA tomorrow at 5 am.”

He doesn’t have anymore informations, and why doesn’t he have more informations? He’s a Captain of the United States Marines, he’s supposed to have all the facts.

“Okay, Nate, for God’s sake, please listen to me.” He nods; knows she can’t see it, but does it anyway. It’s all he can do really. He doesn’t know what’s going on, and a stone of worry, weighing him down, is beginning to form in his stomach. “Just… turn on the TV, stay with me here on the phone, okay?”

There’s a constriction in his chest, and he feels a little like he’s choking, but he does as she says. An order is an order, no matter the circumstances. Marines make do.

He doesn’t have to look long, he doesn’t even have to look at the flight number. All he can see are the words _Airplane crashed in the Northern Atlantic ocean._ He doesn’t even need the extra information that airplane was from British Airways. He can feel it like it’s happening to him, the falling, the crashing, the hurting. The dying.

As assured as he’s ever been of anything, he knows in his heart that he’s looking at the machine that killed his lover. That killed the man he loved, the person he’ll always love, the only person in the whole fucking wide world.

It hurts, he notes, a little pitiful. It hurts so goddamned much, and he really wants it to end.

“Ruth”, he says because it’s all he can say. There’s breaking news on the TV, Brad is deaddeaddeaddeaddeaddead, and all he can say is, “Ruth.”

He hears a quiet sob on the other end of the phone, and he thinks that that should be him. He should be the one crying, he’s the one who’s lost everything.

He doesn’t.

Not when he has someone to witness his weakness. He’s supposed to be strong, protect his men, he’s the LT, he’s going to take all the shit and protect his men.

That’s his job.

“Listen, Nate, I’m gonna take the first flight I can get out to you, okay, Nate,” and she’s frantic now, and he doesn’t understand why. Then again, he doesn’t understand a whole lot right now, other than the fact that he’s missing half his heart, half his fucking being. “Don’t do anything, stay on the phone if you can. It’s gonna be just fine, I’ll get to you, and I’ll… we’ll figure it out. He could’ve missed it, you know he could. I’m gonna fly to you, and we’re gonna call everyone we can call. He could’ve missed it.”

He knows as well as her that that’s a fucking lie. Brad never misses anything. In fact, he’s always early, unless Encino Man told him to take a wrong turn,

“Schwetje’s laid off, Ruth,” he forces out, his tongue is so dry, so dry. “He doesn’t miss a goddamn thing.”

Maybe she’s saying more, he can’t really tell. All he knows is that he drops his phone, and he doesn’t know where it went, and he doesn’t really care. She’ll come, maybe she won’t. He doesn’t really care, he finds, because there’s nothing to care about.

He left the Marines.

He left Brad.

He left Brad to the airplane crash.

He should’ve been there.

Maybe there’s still someone on the phone. Maybe his Mum will try to call – she always does when she thinks he might not take care of himself – but it doesn’t really matter. He left Brad, he left Brad to die alone when he should’ve protected him. He’s the LT, he should’ve protected his whole goddamn platoon.

He doesn’t think about the ring that will never belong to someone ever again.

He doesn’t think about the bright plans for the future he’d planned.

He doesn’t think about the things that can be ignored.

What he does think about is the alcohol in their living room, and how they’d stashed it there for the welcome party. A party that’ll never happen, because no one’s returning to Nate. His friends all went down into the icecold sea of the Atlantic, and he’s never going to see them again.

He drinks a flask of vodka and doesn’t think about much other than Brad. It hurts so fucking much that he thinks he’s going to pass out. It’s agony, it is, and it’s like glass is being plunged into his heart, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe.

Brad doesn’t come to him, not in person, not in dreams. He wakes up feeling disgusting, unworthy, and cries like he’s never cried before.

 

In the morning, Ruth is at the door, and he’s not found his phone yet. He doesn’t really want to. He doesn’t want to do anything, really, if he’s being honest. It hurts, and he’s used to things hurting, because he’s always had Brad to share the burden with, but now he’s all alone, and it hurts so fucking much.

He doesn’t open the door, and she lets herself in using the spare key. That’s the only explanation, anyway, for how she’s suddenly in front of, eyes wide, face white.

“Nate,” and she sounds scared and disappointed, and he’s so reminded of how she treated him when he got back. She was used to her well-functioning little brother who’d planned his way in life, was on his way to a shiny and bright future, and when he came home from war, all fucked up and not being able to not be Lieutenant Fick anymore, she was the most shocked of all.

She was also the one who welcomed Brad the soonest and most of all. Here was a man who could put back together her little brother’s heart, who could chase away the ghosts in his eyes. He had never seen her look more relieved than when he laughed, really laughed, for the first time in ages in front of her with Brad by his side.

There’s no miracle Brad this time. This time it’s not the war who ripped him apart at the seams, it’s honest to God so fucking ironic that he can’t really deal with it. This time it’s Brad who took his heart and shattered it into a thousand pieces.

He laughs, a wretched and ugly sound, looks down on the vodka flask in his hand that somehow is now a flask of white rum, and the laugh turns into sobs. It feels like he’s sobbing up his lungs, and he just can’t stop. Ruth stares at him with fear in her eyes, and she’s by his side in a second. He’s immensely happy that she doesn’t cage him in in anyway, she doesn’t wrap him up in her arms, and he knows it hurts her, to always be so very careful around him.

“Jesus, Nate,” she whispers, caressing his cheek – her hand is cold against his impossibly hot skin, and it makes him shiver. He can’t breathe, it just hurts so goddamn much. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

It’s true, she hasn’t. She didn’t see him the nights after he first came back, how much he fought an enemy who wasn’t there.

Or maybe she’s always known about that. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t seen him break apart so easily with no clue how to fix him. How do you fix such a deep, open wound? This isn’t a flesh wound, it’s hit the goddamn main artery. It’s a killing shot.

“Nate, Nate, Nate,” she’s whispering, pleading with him, and all he can do is press into her, sob, and eventually pass out. Either from exhaustion, hangover or hyperventilation, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t really care.

All he knows is that even here in the vast darkness of his subconsciousness, he still hurts so much. His very soul hurts. His heart is shattered. There’s no putting him back together.

Last time he wanted to pretend he was okay. This time he doesn’t even have energy to open his eyes.

 

“C’mon, you idiot,” Brad’s grumbling, as he picks up his bag from the conveyor belt. It’s been an hour since they landed, and the airport personnel only now got their dicks back in their pants in order to transport the airplane’s passengers’ bags. “Pick up.”

He doesn’t have any internet connection, his phone not having any data. He hasn’t needed it in so long, he – despite all of Nate’s protests – doesn’t have the money to keep paying for a phone he doesn’t use. He’s well aware, of course, that Nate would pay all his expenses twice before letting him pay one dime, but luckily his phone bill is a bill that Nate wasn’t able to get his hands on.

It’s the seventh message he’s left since he landed this morning, and it’s already been an hour since he left the first message. He knows, rationally, that it makes him look like a wet, sorority girl who’s never been properly fucked and now finally can see her moment on the horizon, but he doesn’t really care. All he cares for is Nate, all he wants is Nate, and Nate isn’t fucking picking up.

He runs out of the terminal, out of the airport, when he’s stared at his phone for another ten minutes, quickly concluding that Nate’s not gonna call back. The idiot’s probably overworked himself, forgot to charge his phone, and is finally asleep for the first time in what he guesses is 36 hours.

Finals are just around the corner – and by just around the corner, he of course means that there’s two months until Nate’s first final.

It doesn’t mean that Nate’s ever let such arguments stop him from overworking himself until he falls asleep without even knowing it.

Hailing a cap at 10 am on a Sunday, is apparently like being in hell. Either they all choose the rich people with their briefcases and their fancy 11 o’clock meetings, or they just zoom past him. He hates San Francisco on Sundays; on Sundays they like to pretend they’re as fancy as the folks in New York. Doesn’t really work, but he’s not the one to crush their dreams.

Except to-fucking-day. Today he doesn’t want any arrogant cab drivers keeping him from reaching Nate, even if it’s just to crawl into bed with him and hold him tight until he isn’t comatose anymore.

It’s almost like fucking destiny that this is the moment that he sees not Nate’s name on the caller ID of his vibrating phone, but rather Ray fucking Person. Not even two fucking hours on shore, and he already has to deal with this fucker, and it’s March, and it’s cold as fuck, and the cab’s won’t fucking stop for him.

“What?”

There’s a moment of silence, and then, “hello?”

It sounds like Ray, and no one has ever quite mastered the same tone of complete pain in the assness, so Brad bets his best money that this is indeed Ray whose finally lost the last two of his remaining brain cells.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Ray, I know that you’re a whiskey tango sisterfucker who’s never been able to read above first grade level, but we did kind of invade Iraq together, try fucking remember my voice and name, you emptybrained idiot.” He knows it’s a bit harsh for their first conversation in months, but really, even Ray’s not supposed to be so fucking dumb as he is right now.

“Oh my God,” and the only thing stopping Brad in his step is the way Ray’s voice sounds. Of how he really, truly sounds shocked that it’s Brad. “It’s you, you’re alive, shit, shit, fuck.”

He opens his mouth a couple of times before closing it again, not knowing how to respond to that. How do one respond to that? But Ray Person fucking loves the sound of his own voice, so of course he keeps rambling on.

Brad’s heart’s pretty fucking close to breaking by the end of it.

“Shit, okay, homes, you listen to me right now, okay,” and he’s rushing, he’s fucking rushing like he doesn’t think Brad’ll keep listening. He’s probably right. “You have to go home right now, wrap your little LT in a fucking big hug, because the plane you were supposed to catch from London crashed in the Atlantic, so they all think you’re dead and gone.”

He still doesn’t know how to respond, and his heart is hammering furiously, it almost hurts his ribs, and he can’t really focus on anything right now.

“I...” he swallows, forces himself to start over. “I didn’t know.”

“No, of course you didn’t, homes, but just be fucking glad that the incompetence of command actually saved your fucking ass,” and Brad knows this, is shocked by this, this is a fact that shakes his fucking core of self. 

“Nate...” he says helplessly, and didn’t really know how to continue.

Fuck. Nate.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck_.

He held out a hand for the cab coming up, assured of that if it didn’t stop, he’d run until he was home. He’d been away for too long, and Nate thought he was dead, and he wasn’t picking up, and was probably well on his way to fall completely apart.

Shit.

“Have you talked to Nate?”, and it’s pleading, it’s begging, his voice, but he doesn’t care, can’t bring himself to care.

Nate’s not fragile, never has been, never will be, but he knows that Nate latched onto him, as he latched onto Nate, in the still-standing hell that was the years after Iraq. He doesn’t even want to think about how Nate’s taking all of this.

The last time he had a nightmare, as far as he’s told Brad, was when Brad’s unit was trapped behind enemy lines for a few days, before linking back up with RCT. It was the first and only fucking time, Brad had ever been glad to see those fuckers.

He has to get home to Nate.

“Nate’s…”, and Ray doesn’t finish, and that’s all the incentive Brad needs to run towards the yellow cab which quickly slams the brakes.

He nods thankfully, throws his bag in and tells the chauffeur their address. “And please step on it,”, he says, and it’s almost like a fucking whine.

If he wasn’t so fucking scared for Nate – because Nate’s the most important thing, person, in the whole wide world – he would’ve been ashamed of himself. What a fucking Iceman he is.

“Just get home to him, okay,” Ray’s voice’s soft, and Brad curses softly. If Nate left the moron in a state of speechlessness, this fucking cab could not have him home soon enough.

As they drive through San Francisco, he really doesn’t pay attention to anything, keeps his eyes firmly on speedometer, making sure that the cab driver never goes too slow, because going too slow means more time that Nate still thinks he’s dead, and no, that’s not acceptable.

It feels like eternity, it really fucking does, before the cab driver finally pulls up at their shared apartmentbuilding; it looks exactly the same, and Brad almost smiles. This is home, his bones aching at the sight of it, and his heart longing, longing, longing.

He gives the cab driver a fair tip, tries to keep it nonchalant, before he all but runs up to the stairs. Getting home to Nate has never been of such a fucking utmost importance. The clock is 12 o’clock on a Sunday, and Nate has believed he’s dead for about 17 hours, he believes. That is unacceptable. Nate suffering while being a fucking civilian is unacceptable.

He gets to their door, number 5C, and takes a moment to just breath. Nate is just on the other side of that door, his heart hurts by the thought of it, and he can’t get his hand to stop shaking. Their spare key isn’t anywhere to be found, but that’s alright, because he’s held onto his copy for the better part of the flight.

The sound of the door unlocking sounds like coming home, and it’s the most beautiful sound he has ever heard.

The apartment is surrounded in darkness despite the sun being at its highest, and he almost cringes at how their wood floor screams in agony when he steps on them. 

A person comes up to him, and it’s only when they’re two meters away from him, that he realizes who it is. She looks like she’s seen a ghost, and he takes a deep breath.

“Ruth.”

Her hands come to her mouth, and her lips are forming soundless words. She looks like she thinks she’s dreaming.

“Ruth, I know, alright, I know,” it’s all he can say. “But I didn’t die. I wasn’t on that plane; our plane flew from Heathrow, not Stansted. It was a major fuck up really, from command, but when aren’t they fucking up, so we missed our plane and had to wait. No one was harmed, we didn’t know anything about the crash.”

She stares at him for a little time, before she blinks, obviously having needed some time to reevaluate her world picture to accommodate for the new information. She smiles at last, “thank you, Brad.”

She gives him a quick hug, eyes shining wet, and he gives her a small smile. “I’ll probably be gone in the morning then, Jakob is sick, and my husband can’t stay at home from work for more than a few days.”

He nods once, affirmative. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

She smiles sadly, “he’s my brother.” She nods once, smiles tightly at him, before returning to the living room, where he presumes she sleeps on the couch. Right now, he doesn’t really care. Not a lot.

His bag thrown in the corner, he all but runs to their bedroom. Standing in the door frame, looking at Nate looking so fucking small and young and heartbroken in their shared bed, that’s too fucking big for him, now that Brad isn’t there. He takes a deep breath, smiling softly, and walks over too the bed.

Nate stirs almost immediately, and it takes five seconds for Brad to recognize the look in his eyes.

It’s been so long.

“Nate,” he whispers, because here’s a fucking Marine officer who still thinks he’s in theater, that he’s in Iraq fighting to liberate its people and keep his own men alive. The green eyes look almost brown in the darkness.

Brad forces himself to swallow.

“Nate, you’re home, we’re home,” all he wants is for Nate to fucking snap out of it. Of course, that’s not what happens. Nate doesn’t recognize him when these attacks hit, not in the beginning.

“Where’s my Ka-Bar, Sergeant?”, and then something shifts, the stern voice, the cold eyes, the stoneset expression, it all shifts, and Nate looks so heartbroken that Brad can’t stand to look at it. “Brad.”

It’s a whine, it’s a plead, and Brad is there to give him everything his heart desires.

“Hey Nate,” he whispers, hand caressing the other’s cheek. Nate’s eyes are wide, wet, and betrayed.

“You’re dead,” is all he says, and a sob wreaks through him, and Brad flounders to keep Nate from shutting him out, from putting the sight of Brad down to his heart betraying him, his brain making him see what he wants to see.

“No, Nate, Nate, look at me,” his voice is pitched, panicked, “it’s not a dream. I’m alive, I’m here, we’re together. We’re safe, I’m safe.”

Nate looks at him for ten seconds before smiling beatifically. Brad’s heart dances in his chest. Nate pushes back, and Brad slips under the covers to hold him tightly against his chest, for the first time in a year and a half.

 

When Nate wakes up, he feels like shit, actual honest to god shit. But there’s a warm presence behind him, and the heartache that threatens to tear him apart is pushed into the back of his head. He recognizes those arms that encircle him, he recognizes the breath on his neck.

It was a nightmare. An ugly nightmare, so twisted that he’s ashamed his brain could make it up, but it doesn’t matter, not now. It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

Brad stirs behind him, and Nate’s heart sings at the knowledge that Brad is right behind him, for the first time in too long.

“Nate?”, Brad whispers, and he sounds a little bit unsure, and Nate quickly twists around, so they lie face to face.

Immediately, Nate’s fingers shoot out to trace the lines that have appeared on Brad’s face since last they saw each other. He looks like Brad, and the sight of him makes Nate’s heart soar.

“Brad,” he whispers, and if he sounds a little bit broken, Brad doesn’t comment, only tries to heal his heart with a kiss so sweet. Nate leans into it, never wants it to end, keeps his eyes firmly shut almost as if he opened his eyes before time – Brad would be gone once more. 

The heartache is almost written in his bones, so before Brad can open his mouth to say whatever he wants to say, Nate blurts out without any hesitation, “I had a nightmare.”

Brad closes his mouth and looks at him intently, and Nate continues. This is solid, this is ritual; whenever they confess something, the other will listen in silence, wait for the other to be ready to share. This is known, he knows this. This is just another morning with Brad by his side, Brad who’s finally home and didn’t die in any airplane crash.

“It was awful, and you were dead, and-” his voice breaks, because fuck, it had all felt so real. He never wanted to feel such agony ever again. “Fuck, Brad, I thought I’d lost you. I’m so happy you’re here.”

He all but throws himself at the other man, not being able to stand to be away from him. It’s been too long, and this dream made the reality of their situation all too real. He could lose Brad when-fucking-ever. And the Marines would probably try to get away with not notifying him too, because they were homophobic and small-minded like that.

Once a Marine, always a Marine, but if you left them the Marine Corps didn’t easily forgive you. Especially not when you left them to join a liberal dick-suck Ivy League University. And then turned one of their finest assets fucking gay.

The Marine Corps didn’t forget.

Brad holds him tightly against him, breathes love declarations into his hair so sweet that Nate’s almost afraid it’s not Brad in bed with him. And then he takes a deep breath, and that sweet smell could never belong to anyone else. This is him, his Brad, who doesn’t lie dead somewhere in the Arctic Sea. He’s here, he’s breathing, he’s warm, he’s alive, he’s Brad. That’s fucking all Nate would ever want.

“Nate,” he breathes, and Nate clings to him desperately, “you hungry?”

He’s not.

He says so, and Brad pulls back a little to look Nate in the eyes, somewhat accusingly. He holds his gaze innocently, until Brad’s eyes rack up and down his body, and Nate feels a little shameful.

“You have to take care of yourself,” Brad almost growls, and Nate nods tightly.

“Yeah, I know,” he swallows, not entirely sure why his feelings are so over the place. He feels like screaming and crying, and his heart doesn’t seem to care that Brad is in front of him, and that the news of him dying, exploding, was all just a dream. “I, you know, just forget about.”

He smiles then. “But now you’re here. You won’t let me forget.”

Brad smiles at him, and it’s the most beautiful sight, and it always makes him feel like he’s blessed for having him, for having Brad’s love even though he doesn’t deserve it. “You bet your ass, I won’t let you forget.”

Nate kisses him, because Brad is alive and well, and Nate can kiss his boyfriend if and when he damn well wants to. Brad’s hands sink to his waist, holding him tight, and his body heat make Nate relax. Brad has always been, even since Iraq and Mesopotamia, home. He always will be.

Brad holds him even after they let go, he holds him tight, and Nate holds onto him like a drowning man is holding onto a life vest.

“How’s your leg?”, Brad murmurs into his hair, and Nate makes a grimace that Brad cannot see, but that he’s sure the other will feel against his chest.

His leg is throbbing, it always is, but today is a little worse than usual, which Nate really doesn’t have the fucking patience to deal with. It’s been too fucking long since he got in that accident – the funny thing is, it happened after the Corps had lost all control over him, amazingly – and the doctors all say he should’ve been completely pain free by now.

He doesn’t want to outright say that they’re lying, but it’s just an objective fact that his leg still hurts, seven months after it was supposed to not hurt ever again.

“For fucks sake, Nate,” and Brad sounds a little angry, and yeah, Nate probably brought that upon himself really. “Come here.” He tugs at him, guides him backwards until he can feel their couch against his legs. He lets himself fall backwards, because Brad still holds his arms; he won’t fall.

Brad positions them on the couch, turns on the TV – maybe just to fill the silence in their apartment, and holds Nate close.

“Nate,” and it sounds like trouble is coming. “I have to tell you something,” and he turns those blue eyes to Nate, and he suddenly feels breathless.

“Ray called me, told me what you’d heard,” and it takes a few seconds for Nate to catch up. It feels like he’s been punched in the gut.

“Is this a dream?”, he asks with a whisper, because he used to dream while thinking he was awake, back when he’d just gotten back from Irag. It’s happened before. Did he dream up this whole fantasy world? A world where Brad survived?

Brad’s hands come to his face, holds him firm and in place. “Listen to me, okay? Just for a second.”

Nate nods, it’s all he can do, really.

“You’re awake, you’re here with me, and we’re both alive and safe.” He almost cries at the familiar words, so he kisses him instead. Brad smiles a bit at that, even though his blue eyes are still serious, worried. “There was an airplane crash, and people died, a lot of people died. But none of them was me, none of them was from my unit nor my company, Nate.”

He doesn’t quite trust himself to speak, so instead he just looks helplessly at Brad. How?, is really his only question, the only thing he doesn’t understand. How wasn’t he on the plane, Nate is sure that Brad sent all of his travel information, from the airplane’s identification code to the time the plane was going to land in San Francisco.

“I’m going to say this once, because you’ll never let me live it down,” and Brad cracks a smile at that, and Nate’s inner turmoil begins to settle, little by little, as Brad continues to be there, continues to be solid, alive, breathing. “but this time the fuckery that is Command saved our fucking asses. Saved due to sheer incompetence, how about that, sir?”

Nate kisses him. “You’re here. Alive, breathing, safe.”

“Yes, sir,” Brad smiles at him, caressing his cheek. “As always.” That’s a blatant lie but it makes Nate happy, anyway.

“I love you.”

Brad looks a him for a little while, blue eyes searching. Nate lets him, just drinks in the sight of him, this perfect, beautiful man that he is so lucky he can call his. This man who followed him across Iraq, from Kuwait to Baghdad. This man who woke him up when he had nightmares, and who he cared for in turn when Brad’s shadows got too close in the darkest hours. This man who sat by his side in the damn hospital and held his hand all throughout his rehabilitation. 

“I love you.” He says again, because yesterday he thought he never had another chance at telling Brad this, so he feels like he should take the chance to let him know, just how fucking in love Nate is. How fucking loved Brad is.

“I love you too,” he kisses him, and all that Nate thinks of is that they’re _here, alive, safe, together_.

One day, he will marry this man, Nate knows this, but right now, all that matters is that they’re _here, alive, safe, together, in love and loved_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> As it says in the tags, it isn't really proofread because I don't really have the energy for it right now, but I will update along the way when I reread and find mistakes. If there's any glaring mistakes, please point them out:')
> 
> and if you simply liked it, don't hesitate to let me know that as well:))))) i thrive on comments
> 
> As always, come cry w/ me @ tumblr if you want (henrycaevill)


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